The Santa Barbara News-Press website is apparently too lame to link to its own front-page stories, so I’ll just summarize a portion of Ted Mills‘ 1.30 article about yesterday’s SBIFF screenwriters panel at the Lobero theatre. Mills mis-characterizes a question I asked of The King’s Speech screenwriter David Seidler and mis-leads about the facts behind it, so I need to straighten this out.

Mills reports that my “stunner” of a question “asked Seidler to respond to charges from from Christopher Hitchens [in a 1.24 Slate article] that The King’s Speech glorifies a monarch who was anti-Semitic.”

All right, stop right there. I never uttered the term “anti-Semitic” and most importantly neither did Hitchens. In fact, no one to my knowledge has ever alluded to King George VI having been precisely “anti-Semitic,” quote unquote.

Mills got it wrong, apparently, because he couldn’t be bothered to read Hitchens’ article, but also because Seidler hadn’t read it either, or so it seemed. His defiant answer at the panel was apparently a response to an 11.28 “Vulture” article by Claude Brodesser-Akner that linked to an eight-year-old Guardian article about Hitler-kowtowing on the part of Colin Firth‘s King George character. But even that article sugggested not so much an anti-Semitic attitude as an indifference to the plight of European Jewry at the start of World War II.

As I explained on 1.24, the gist of Hitchens’ Slate piece was simply that King George VI (a.k.a. “Bertie”), former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and the Windsors all leaned toward appeasement at a crucial time in British history, which is to say the late 1930s and early ’40s. “If it had been up to the Windsors, [Britain’s] finest hour would never have taken place,” Hitchens wrote, “so this is not a detail but a major desecration of the historical record.”

In light of Seidler and Mills’ misunderstanding and mis-referencing, Seidler’s response at yesterday’s screenwriters’ panel was almost moot, but here’s Mills’ description of it:

“Mr. Seidler rose to the occasion, and in a long defense tempered with restrained anger and peppered with much historical data, refuted Hitchens point by point. As someone who lost his paternal grandparents to the Holocaust, he said ‘the suggestion that I would then dedicate this much of my life to somebody I knew to be anti-Semitic I find vile.'”

Seidler also used the term “big lie.” But in the context of his answer, of Mills’ misleading article and Hitchens’ Slate piece, the use of the term “anti-Semitic” was also a big lie. All right, call it a medium-level lie. All to emphasize that it always helps if reporters and panelists take the time to read the pertinent materials before sounding off.

I’m of two minds about this afternoon’s Irish Wake at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, otherwise known as the Santa Barbara Film Festival Blogger’s Panel (4 to 5:30 pm, 1130 State Street). On one hand I’d like as many people as possible to come because it’ll feel like a less miserable thing with friends offering hugs. On the other hand the only way to get through it might be to bring a quart of Jack Daniels and pass it around. Either way you don’t want the panelists to outnumber the audience.

Because the only thing anyone will want to talk about is last night’s impact grenade — i.e., The King’s Speech‘s Tom Hooper winning the DGA award for feature directing, and thereby all but settling the Best Picture race. It’ll basically be an occasion for whimpering, howling and lamenting on the part of myself, Scott Feinberg and Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, plus the usual dry, perceptive, mild-mannered analysis from Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, the beat-reporting, up-with-movies-and-the-people -who-make-them positivism of Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, and the avuncular wit and wisdom of moderator Peter Rainer, critic for the Christian Science Monitor.

I’m thinking that the last time SNL presented this kind of prince-and-the-pauper, Real McCoy-meets-doppleganger thing was when John Belushi and Joe Cocker sang side by side. I’ve looked for the clip for over 20 minutes and can’t find the clip anywhere. Anyone?

Here are some quotes I’ve read over the last 12 or 13 hours since the news broke that Tom Hooper has won the DGA award for best feature directing, and thus more or less confirming a forthcoming Best Picture Oscar win by The King’s Speech.

“Being in the room last night for the DGA Awards, I can tell you the audience was stunned over the Hooper win…Kathryn Bigelow (who read the winner) was visibly shocked…one of the other directors (not Fincher) couldn’t contain himself and let out a howl of laughter. Having been to a lot of these award shows this season a bit…I’m sure all of the directors want to win themselves, but get the feeling they don’t mind losing to Fincher, but I think they do mind losing to Hooper.” — HE commenter “julieW.”

“I have enormous respect and admiration for Tom Hooper. I like the guy. And unlike other directors in the race, he has been generous with his time and thoughts. [But] the inherent ambition of at least 3 of the other 4 nominees is simply on another level. I have no problem when people vote for a movie they like or love, but this is directors voting for achievement in direction. When I see Hooper this week, I will pat him on the back and honestly say, ‘Good on ya.’ But for Fincher and Aronofsky and Nolan and Russell, they have to feel a little brutalized, but should realize that it’s not about pushing for new levels, but a movie popularity contest amongst a narrow base of movie lovers.” — David Poland, “The Hot Blog,” 1.30.11.

“Forgive me but with Oscar analysis it helps to be observant, receptive, objective — and not prescriptive.”– a tweet from Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson. Yes, yes…and to hell with that. This is a moment of terrible shock — a cultural-spiritual tragedy that will be looked back upon with disdain and shudders and embarassment for decades to come.

“So what shit sandwich are we going to have to eat tonight regarding the SAG awards?” — tweet from Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone.

“We shoulda known Oscar would go gaga. The King’s Speech is the only nominee with Nazis in it.” — The Film Experience‘s Nathaniel R.

“The King’s Speech wins DGA? Wow, I’m gonna have to look at the movie again. Everybody loves it except me. Blows whistle I cannot hear Look at it this way: The King’s Speech is as much about how new media changes way people connect as The Social Network. TKS is all about finding a new way to speak when there’s new way to be spoken to. Academy fogies & guild voters relate subconsciously.” — tweets from N.Y. Times media columnist David Carr.

“Hey, it’s not over yet. Maybe now everyone starts switching to King’s Speech and Social Network wins anyway. I’m sorry but winning every single critics group, NBR and the Golden Globes is a big deal. I still can’t figure out how the PGA and the DGA both can think The King’s Speech is a better or worthy movie. Baffles me.” — non-attrib.

“And to think [that] the odds to bet Tom Hooper for Best Director yesterday were 6-1 while Fincher you had to be $1600 to make $100. Yeah, a pretty stunning development. And it feels like just yesterday I was being shouted down early in the season for saying The King’s Speech had a great chance. I think we all assumed that at the very least Fincher and Sorkin were going to be locks. And I had a stat on the radio the other night where going back to 1980, there have been 18 films that won director and one of the screenplay categories. 16 of those won Best Picture. The only two that did not were Brokeback Mountain and Traffic.” — anonymous.

Devotees of eternal cinematic Movie Godz justice are tonight contemplating the drinking of hemlock, the inhaling of lethal gas and leaping from high cliffs. For Tom Hooper, a highly talented, handsome, intelligent and quite likable fellow who directed a very commendable 1993 film called The King’s Speech, has won the DGA award for feature film directing…and when I heard this news about 80 minutes ago, I folded. My face turned ashen gray and I died a little inside. Because I knew then and there that the Best Picture Oscar race was all but over. The King’s Speech will almost certainly win and The Social Network will lose.

As satisfying and well-wrought as The King’s Speech is in the realm of old-fashioned, emotionally reassuring cinema, this is an Oscar night that will live in infamy. The Academy’s fudge-pudge mentality has prevailed. Hooper’s DGA win echoes the triumph of Crash over Brokeback Mountain, Chicago over The Pianist, Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas, Ordinary People over Raging Bull and How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane. And the Best Picture Oscar wins of Driving Miss Daisy, Around the World in 80 Days and The Greatest Show on Earth.

Comfort, contentment and middle-class Masterpiece Theatre milquetoast values have prevailed. They “liked” The King’s Speech better, so there. Kick me, shoot me, run me over with a double-decker bus.

Early tomorrow morning the henchmen of Soviet Colonel Dimitri Ilyavich Karger will kick my door in and put me on a train to a Siberian gulag, and I’ll go willingly because I know when the jig is up. My spirit is spent. I’m feeling so downhearted I’m wondering if I can even sleep tonight. This is a very deflating moment for those who know the final truth of things vs. those who chose their little comfort blankies. We’ve suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. But there’s no choice but to be fair and gracious and respectful to the film that has won and….no! No! I am John Foster Dulles refusing to shake the hand of Chou En-lai.

A friend feels awful about this. I told her we all have an opportunity to be big about it, to be gracious and deferential…and to remind the world that ONLY IN THE TINY LITTLE CULTURAL POCKET OF THE LOS ANGELES FILM INDUSTRY (and among the even more fragmentary Academy member circles in New York City and London) DOES THIS KIND OF SHIT PLAY IN A PLURALISTIC VOTING-BODY SENSE. History will not look kindly. The under-35 generation will distance itself that much more from this bastion of backward-gazing, old-fart status-quo centrist values. The Social Network has swept the critics groups, is a far, far better film in the minds of the Movie Godz, and it will gleam for decades to come. What happened last night is a ensemble backslide move for the ages.

Lee J. Cobb has swung the jury in favor of guilty, and Henry Fonda is the one slowly walking down the steps in the early-morning light, his head hung in dejection.

Last night’s Annette Bening tribute at the Santa Barbara Film Festival (i.e., a bestowing of the American Riviera Award at the Arlington theatre) was a pleasure — good conversation between Bening and SBIFF festival chief Roger Durling, a toney film-clip reel that Durling had personally supervised in editing, a gracious award-presenting speech from Kevin Costner and a pace that moved right along.

An elegant after-party was held at the sprawling Montecito estate of SBIFF board of director honcho Jeff Barbakow and his wife Sharon. Anne Thompson, Dana Harris and I corralled the attention of Warren Beatty, Bening’s legendary husband, for 25 or 30 minutes, covering several bases including 21st Century film distribution and the ridiculous cost of high-end, ultra-high-def home theatre systems.

A Focus Features Oscar strategist is contending (naturally) that Bening, a Best Actress contender for The Kids Are All Right, is surging from her Golden Globe win and an entirely possible if not expected (she says) SAG win, and that Deadline‘s Pete Hammond is now predicting a Bening win and that “she’s due” and all that. Hey, if it happens, fine. I’ll be stunned if Natalie Portman doesn’t take it but whatever.

A friend with a migraine is sleeping it off in my Santa Barbara hotel room, so I went down to a Starbucks at the corner of State and Cota to do some filing. I saw an empty table with a cup of latte-or-whatever sitting on top of it, but no one in either chair. I figured the person who’d ordered was in the bathroom. The general rule, of course, is that single customers can save a chair but not a whole table, which are frequently shared. So I sat down in one of the chairs and plugged in the computer, etc.

Knock-knock. Some tall guy outside who was talking on his cell phone was tapping on the window next to the table and gesturing at the coffee cup. I grinned and gestured as if to say, “Yes, that’s your coffee and your chair, but you don’t own the table, pal….sorry.” He rapped on the window again, more sharply this time, emphasizing that the coffee cup meant that he has hunkies and does in fact own the table, including both chairs. My inner response was one of ridicule and disdain, but I shrugged and half-smiled as if to say, “Gee, I don’t think so, but you’re definitely assured of a seat when you’ve finished arguing with your girlfriend or whatever and you come back inside.”

The guy (heavyish, bison-like, mid 40s, big feet, shorts) frowned and pivoted and rounded the corner and came over to the table. I went to myself, “Okay, here we go…confrontation time.” But he just grabbed the coffee and gave me a dirty look and went back outside. Compare this asshole to a typical Cairo demonstrator, desperate to effect change and running down tear-gassed streets and dodging bullets, etc.

Why stop with Egypt? Let the revolutionary wildfire spread across borders and continents and into conference rooms. Get rid of every greedy, corrupted and insensitive top dog in every country, city, corporation and poorly-managed Walmart. Cleanse the world of all snakes and dogs in one great tidal backwash. Obviously I’m joking, but why can’t the fever just spread up and down the Nile and out into the Mediterranean and across the oceans? The idea is thrilling.

Yesterday morning the conventional wisdom was that either that (a) Mubarak, his family and associates leave Cairo in a helicopter in the wee hours, or (b) Cairo will become another Tiananmen Square. Now the word is that Cairo cops and the military are holding back, and that Mubarak and his family leaving is only a matter of time.

I love this paragraph from a recent Huffington Post summary: “A 43-year-old teacher, Rafaat Mubarak, said the appointment of the president’s intelligence chief and longtime confidant, Omar Suleiman, as vice president did not satisfy the protesters. ‘This is all nonsense,’ he said. ‘They will not fool us anymore. We want the head of the snake. If he is appointed by Mubarak, then he is just one more member of the gang. We are not speaking about a branch in a tree, we are talking about the roots.”

This is nearly a week old and covered with dust, but the universe isn’t big enough for two icky-sticky downer movies about poor Linda Lovelace. I wasn’t overjoyed about Matthew Wilder‘s Inferno (the former Lindsay Lohan project, now starring Malin Akerman) but I was willing to deal with it on some level. But a second competing version starring Kate Hudson as Linda and James Franco as Chuck Traynor is just impossible. There’s just not enough psychic space for both. One of them has to go. In fact, kill them both. Wait a minute…

Brainstorm: Combine both casts for a single film about Linda Lovelace (Hudson) dealing with (a) the fiendish Traynor and porn-industry exploitation and (b) at the same time coping with a Twilight Zone-ish realization that there’s another Linda Lovelace living in a parallel universe — a regular housewife and Walmart employee — who’s plotting to take over her life and career as a famous porn star. The weird thing is that the “other” Linda Lovelace (Akerman) doesn’t even look like the original. At first they fight each other in a kind of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill style, barefoot kickboxing with samurai swords, and then they team up as a two-for-one porn pair. They eventually become lesbian lovers, and then they adopt two kids — a girl and a boy. Plus they rewrite history by starting their own production company, kicking Traynor out of their lives, and eventually becoming leading voices in the feminist movement. And then in the late ’80s one of them becomes HIV-positive, gets cancer and dies.

My understanding of Charlie Sheen‘s sad and tedious situation is that eventually (five, ten years down the road) he’ll understand where his life is going, wake up and change course, or eventually (five, ten years down the road) he’ll be found dead. And no one will be the least bit surprised.

I’ll never been able to understand how cocaine use goes along with enjoying the company of prostitutes. Because in my experience with this idiotic substance (I dabbled in the early ’80s), it was clear early on that doing lines “interferes,” so to speak. An old Robin Williams coke joke — “makes me paranoid and impotent…aahh, give me more of that!” — pretty much summed it up.

Because he’s a heavy-cat artiste drawn to an “off” visual style, Filmmaker magazine’s Jamie Stuart (i.e., the New York blizzard short-film guy) has shot interviews with Martha Marcy May Marlene costars Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes in a way that obscures their faces in amber-rosey shadows.

Remember that early scene in Reds when patrons of a Portland art gallery call Diane Keaton/Louise Bryant‘s photographs “blurry,” and how Warren Beatty/John Reed makes the same remark when he visits her studio?